THE CANVAS MONTHLY. January Issue

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1 1 THE CANVAS MONTHLY January Issue

Catching Up with Lisa Schiff 4 Walking into Lisa Schiff s home for our scheduled interview together, The Canvas was immediately struck by the sheer amount of activity that seemed to buzz throughout

2 Catching Up with Lisa Schiff 4 Walking into Lisa Schiff s home for our scheduled interview together, The Canvas was immediately struck by the sheer amount of activity that seemed to buzz throughout the space. Members of her advisory staff were quietly typing away on the couch, clients were calling her cellphone incessantly, dogs were being fed treats and taken to different rooms lest their barking interrupt our conversation, and a seemingly never-ending stream of people were filing in and out of the space on a continual basis. Such is the daily life for Lisa Schiff, perhaps the most well-known art advisor working in the industry today. While most interviews tend to at least touch on the subject of her most famous client, the actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, The Canvas chose to forgo the click-bait headlines and focus instead on the core of her business. We took the opportunity to discuss the recent trend of large galleries opening in-house advisory practices, her recently announced Tribeca space, as well as that fiery op-ed she penned for Artnet back in October. While the interview below was edited and condensed for clarity purposes, read below to get a sense of Lisa s contagious energy, and why her clients tend to implicitly trust her taste and advice in all matters related to collecting. The Canvas: To start off, what would you say is the typical collector profile of a Lisa Schiff client? Lisa Schiff: Honestly they re all so different. But typically it s a couple that s very high up in their respective careers who know what they like but haven t started seriously collecting yet. They may be in their 50s and looking to purchase art for a new home, but those projects tend to ebb and flow. So we have around twenty clients with only about five of them actively purchasing at any given time. But even if a client isn t actively buying, we still take them to galleries, send them different ideas, and generally converse with them. We re never in a position where we re driving clients away because they haven t purchased in a while. And then I have clients who are full on serious collectors who are purchasing well beyond their walls at this point. So it s really an interesting mix. The Canvas: A lot of galleries have been inching into the advisory space lately. Lévy Gorvy in particular has quite a robust advisory practice, with dedicated spaces for advisory clients in New York, Zurich, and Geneva. Do you feel like over the next few years that trend might have a material impact on your business?

3 5 Lisa Schiff: I m sure Gagosian is going to do that as well by the way. I feel like I ve heard rumblings about it. But look, there s only so many clients that we can have ourselves. At the end of the day, we can only really service about twenty clients at a time. I think there s room for everybody as there are billions of people in the world and the art market is possibly the most popular its ever been. However, I will say that I think there s a lot of the wrong type of people entering the market right now; with very skewed expectations about the kind of liquidity that exists in the art world. I feel like what I do for clients is basically make the landscape as transparent as possible. And I wonder if a gallery s in-house advisory practice is really able to offer that same kind of transparency and third-party perspective. But ultimately, I think that an advisor is a good thing to have for any collector spending a certain amount of money on art. The value and payoff that we deliver is huge. As long as the advisor is actually good though. The problem is that there are a lot of not-so-great people out there calling themselves advisors who really have no business being in this world at all. The Canvas: And as you ve said in past interviews, you feel that all advisors should have a strong art history background in order to succeed and deliver for their clients Lisa Schiff: I 100% stand by that statement. At the end of the day, we re telling stories. The best art reflects what is happening in society at the time. As an art advisor it s your responsibility to draw that together and relate it not just to art history, but the bigger picture of what s happening in the world at that moment. I feel like what I do for clients is basically make the landscape as transparent as possible. And I wonder if a gallery s in-house advisory practice is really able to offer that same kind of transparency and third-party perspective. The Canvas: Let s talk about the recent announcement of your new Tribeca space if we can for a moment as it got a lot of attention in the press. Lisa Schiff: I was actually really surprised by how much attention has been paid to it. I wasn t even ready to announce anything. I just posted on my Instagram which never gets more than 200 likes on a given post, and all of a sudden my phone was blowing up. Now I m just like, Oh shit. Now I really can t mess this up. The idea is to use the space as a sort of living room where we ll be able to showcase the works of artists that we believe in and want to support. Rodman Primack is doing the space which I m so excited about because I love his aesthetic. There will be a communal table, and a lot of cozy places to perch and relax. There ll be a lot of carpets and different textures. The ceilings are really high so we re building a little floor to ceiling library- The Canvas:: And these will be works from your own inventory? Lisa Schiff: Yes. But in between the art that is ours and not for sale will be works that my clients own and that

4 6 I need to sell. They ll consign a piece and I can hang it and hopefully someone who comes in will be interested in purchasing it. But I m going to try and sell things responsibly. It s not like a primary market dealership at all. I have a lot of clients who have been doing this for twenty years and they just want to move things out sometimes. It s not about making a profit- they re willing to take a loss. So hopefully the space will allow for a sort of seamless integration between what s for sale and what s not for sale. The Canvas: Is the idea that you want people to actually come and visit the space? Are you thinking of running events as well? Lisa Schiff: So I haven t quite figured out all of those details yet. We ll definitely have a buzzer. But if someone is cruising the neighborhood and they want to take a load off, then great. I mean perhaps it ll be way more disruptive than I m anticipating and we ll never get any work done, but maybe we ll get a new client this way. Who knows? And yes, I d love to start a parent or family day maybe one Saturday a month and invite people who are local to the neighborhood to come in and learn about different artists, and maybe visit some of the other galleries in the area. The Canvas: When do you expect it to open by? Lisa Schiff: We get the keys January 15th and we re hoping to have it open by March 1st in time for Armory Week and Independent which takes place at Spring Studios right near by. The Canvas: Going back for a second, you mentioned the company s inventory, which artists are in there if you don t mind my asking? Lisa Schiff: We re actually doing our year-end inventory right now and going through everything, so we can take a look at the list which is right over here. There are a lot of young artists, as well as some pieces that I purchase on behalf of my son. But as you can see, we have works by Amelia Ulman, Frances Stark, Ann Craven, Kelly Akashi. Richard Prince is in there as well. There s Alex Da Corte, Brian Calvin, Arthur Jafa, Alex Israel, and some great Sam McKinniss pieces too. I feel like we re all so blindly basing our decision making on auction results, and if we do that then it s just Adam Smith deciding what s important and what s not without any real scholarship. The Canvas: Wow. This is definitely a lot more than I expected just in terms of the absolute number. Out of curiosity, which storage facility do you guys use? Lisa Schiff: Uovo. The Canvas: Let s talk about your Artnet op-ed from a few months ago. In your own words, can you take me through the points you were trying to get across as it seems like there were a few different issues you were trying to speak about in the one piece Lisa Schiff: Sure. I m really concerned about value making at the moment. I think there s a real problem when a painting of Fat Albert from the Cosby Show by KAWS is blown up in the window at Phillips below a Wayne Thiebaud. And a bad Christina Quarles painting is placed next to a Gerhard Richter, while Richard Prince is in the toilet. I mean, something s wrong there. I feel like we re all so blindly basing our decision making on auction results, and if we do that then it s just Adam Smith

5 deciding what s important and what s not without any real scholarship. Unfortunately, most people in the world are stupid, and I feel like stupidity is really running the machine right now because people will just jump on the bandwagon of whatever they think will make them the most money. 7 The Canvas: So in the op-ed you specifically talked about Joan Mitchell, Avery Singer, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby Lisa Schiff: Right. So I wasn t really speaking so much about Mitchell, but definitely with Crosby and Avery Singer the point I was trying to make was how harmful it could be to the career of a really high-quality artist when their work starts to get speculated on. When you essentially have a certain group of players who are often working together in concert with their ipads and JPEGS of works that are on the primary market, and they re essentially consigning them to auction before they re even paid for, I think that s really harmful to artists. It breeds trust issues. Curators tend to devalue the works of those artists over time. I mean, I really wish the auction houses would do more to discourage- rather than proactively encourage- that sort of behavior. The Canvas: Do you think the auction houses have been abdicating their responsibility in that regard? Lisa Schiff: I think some are more than others. I think Phillips has been the worst, and you can t take on Cheyenne Westphal. I mean really, a freaking billboard of Fat Albert? Where are the protestors? Like, I m pretty sure KAWS is white, and can t we all agree that Fat Albert is racist and also from the Cosby Show? I mean, why is no one saying anything about this shit? The Canvas: I ll admit that I was surprised by the sudden frequency of KAWS pieces popping at the evening sales Are there any particular artists or movements you envision being particularly popular amongst your clients for 2019? Lisa Schiff: I m really into Ivy Haldeman and Katie Stout s work at the moment. I ve also been looking at a lot of Elaine Cameron-Weir works as I m a really big fan of her practice. And then I m obsessed with Alex Da Corte. I recently did a studio visit with a client and practically bought everything we could. He is so special and has got everything you want. So while he s not a breakout hit- he s been around for a while- I think things are just going to keep going really well for him. He ll have a big presence in Venice in the spring As does Martin Puryear who I m really excited about too. One of my clients bought one of his pieces from Matthew Marks down in Miami and made me so so happy. When you essentially have a certain group of players who are often working together in concert with their ipads and JPEGS of works that are on the primary market, and they re essentially consigning them to auction before they re even paid for, I think that s really harmful to artists.

At Sean Kelly Gallery, an installation shot of the video Ausencia, 2015, by Diana Fonseca Quiñones Photo: Jason Wyche, courtesy Sean Kelly Gallery

In Conversation: Sean Kelly and Lauren Kelly, Cuban Art News, February 9, 2016. At Sean Kelly Gallery, an installation shot of the video Ausencia, 2015, by Diana Fonseca Quiñones Photo: Jason Wyche, courtesy